To Leave Takes Courage
This summer, I did something I’ve never done before:
I left work for three whole weeks.
After more than a decade of schedule constraints that included residency, fellowship, work, and covid, my husband and I realized there was never going to be a ‘good’ time to leave.
...but that wasn’t a compelling reason to stay either!
So we cooked up a ludicrous itinerary that included planes, trains, buses, and boats to explore Salzburg, Innsbruck, Tirol, to London, Cambridge, and even a secluded section of beach along the North Sea.
Schlepping two kids, four backpacks, and three suitcases around Europe wasn’t going to be stress free, but we were in desperate need of a new challenge.
Leaving is Good for You
On day three of our journey, still enduring kid jetlag and 95 degree heat with no AC, my Apple watch notified me that my new resting heart rate was markedly lower than it was back home.
Had I finally started that aspirational meditation practice? Sadly, no.
But I had traded familiar environments, habits, and stress stimuli for completely unfamiliar ones, and that was enough to trick my body into relaxing a little.
You see, when you put yourself somewhere where everything is new, your body has a harder time cuing habitual stress responses.
This frees up your body (and your mind!) to engage in something I call non-judgmental, embodied effort.
Whether or not you remember, this kind of effort was your genius as a child.
Immersing yourself in the unfamiliar, relinquishing expectations, and tinkering anyway helped you become the remarkable person you are.
Activating it again is possible, and it is great preparation for your next big leap.
Your Next Big Leap
If you’ve been considering an exit of any kind, I hope you will remember these 3 things:
Leaving is an act of courage that’s rarely stress free. It is a choice that's always available to you in some form or another.
Leaving isn’t just for you (and it isn't about them). It is about changing things up so familiar habits and stress responses can’t call the shots.
Non-judgmental embodied effort is something you were born to do. You might just need to trick your body into remembering how much better it feels.
